whenever I read a passage that moves me, I transcribe it in my diary, hoping my fingers might learn what excellence feels like.

It's safe to assume that by 2085 guns will be sold in vending machines but you won't be able to smoke anywhere in America.

Maybe one day, I would write a story about arguing in public, and those would come in handy in some way.

Performance is really an important part of how I edit. I sometimes take something out because I realize I put in a joke just to be funny and the audience laughed, but I should be ashamed of myself. I sometimes take out sentences, which are perfectly fine on paper, just because they don't flow when I say them out loud. I always read my work out loud now.

I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives.

A lot of people don't know what they want, you know, or they're just kind of vague about it.

It's funny how certain objects convey a message - my washer and dryer, for example. They can't speak, of course, but whenever I pass them they remind me that I'm doing fairly well. "No more laundromat for you," they hum. My stove, a downer, tells me every day that I can't cook, and before I can defend myself my scale jumps in, shouting from the bathroom, "Well, he must be doing _something - _my numbers is off the charts." The skeleton has a much more limited vocabulary, and says only one thing: "You are going to die."